396
THE GREEN BAG
A similar adventure happened to him once before. He was speaking in a case in the court house at Versailles when he was interrupted by Judge A. K. Woolley, who threatened to strike him. With a graceful wave of his hand he replied, "Consider the blow as struck, Mr. Woolley," and finished his speech. He then challenged Woolley but through the intervention of Henry Clay and Crittenden the affair was amicably adjusted. Marshall, through no fault of his own, missed being in the battle of Buena Vista, a fact which he treasured against his kinsman and colonel. On returning home from the war he stopped over in New Orleans and delivered an eloquent speech by invitation of the leading citizens. In 1849-50 a new constitution was placed before the people of Kentucky for ratifica tion. Marshall opposed it with pen and voice. Few more able papers have ever been written than his pamphlet "The Old Guard" in which he discussed the fail ings of the proposed new instrument. His special plea was for an independent judi ciary, which he considered to be the most necessary part of government and the surest safe-guard against tryanny and oppression. In this campaign he reached, in the public estimation, the culminating point of his career as an orator. At Louisville he made three speeches in four nights to immense crowds, and it was the verdict of his auditors — friends and foes — (and there were many competent judges among both), that his speech was the finest they had ever heard. George D. Prentice thus noticed the last in the Journal: "We hardly know how to speak in ade quate terms of this great speech. It was above all compliment. Mr. Marshall had devoted the two preceding evenings to a discussion of the various provisions of the proposed new constitution and had reserved until last night the subject of the judiciary, the change in which he regarded as the most momentous topic to be discussed.
Great expectations were raised and an audience, which in numbers and intelligence, we have rarely seen equalled in Louisville, thronged the room at an early hour. And most nobly did the orator sustain his own fame. He was full of wit and sarcasm and felicitious illustrations. But it was in his appeal to the sober reason of the audience that he was transcendently great. The main portion of his speech was an argument against an elective judiciary — an argu ment, which for sledge-hammer power, we have seldom if ever heard equalled. It was massive and beautiful in its propor tions as the old monuments of genius which have survived the wreck of ages and still live in immortal strength. ... If Mr. Mar shall had never given to the world any other evidence of his great power of mind than his masculine argument of last night, it alone would stamp him as one of the first orators of his time." On April 1, 1852, Marshall was married to Miss Elizabeth Yost in Versailles. She was many years younger than the orator and became attached to him in rather a romantic manner. It seems, that when she was quite young, Marshall, then in his golden prime, boarded at the house of her mother. He being a fine conversationalist and enjoying particularly the presence of a good listener soon discovered in the young girl an interesting and almost indispensable companion and he was, as a consequence, to be frequently found in her society. During these conversations she conceived so great an affection for him that though a noted beauty and much sought after by the beaux she would have none other. She sur vived her husband many years, removing to Shelby County where she died not long ago. In 1856 Marshall removed to Chicago but returned in the fall of that year, at the request of friends,, to take part in the cam paign against Buchanan. During the cam paign he contracted pneumonia, which kept him confined to his bed in Frankfort all winter.
